For OLTP, I keep 1 day of archived log on disk because we have standby database and nice to have it readily available. For DW which is being backed up by EMC snapshot technology, I only keep the last hour of archived log. NOTICE OF CONFIDENTIALITY - This material is intended for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed, and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable laws. BE FURTHER ADVISED THAT THIS EMAIL MAY CONTAIN PROTECTED HEALTH INFORMATION (PHI). BY ACCEPTING THIS MESSAGE, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THE FOREGOING, AND AGREE AS FOLLOWS: YOU AGREE TO NOT DISCLOSE TO ANY THIRD PARTY ANY PHI CONTAINED HEREIN, EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY PERMITTED AND ONLY TO THE EXTENT NECESSARY TO PERFORM YOUR OBLIGATIONS RELATING TO THE RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE. If the reader of this email (and attachments) is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. Please notify the sender of the error and delete the e-mail you received. Thank you. ________________________________ From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Howard Latham Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2010 12:42 PM To: Mayen.Shah@xxxxxxxxxx Cc: janine@xxxxxxxxxx; oracle-l L; oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: How long to keep archive logs? You need to know how long your business may require to go back. Once you have that double it and then keep as many archived logs as you can without running out of disc space. On 20 April 2010 20:31, <Mayen.Shah@xxxxxxxxxx<mailto:Mayen.Shah@xxxxxxxxxx>> wrote: Janine, Short answer is "it depends". How frequently are you taking backups? At the least you must keep archived logs from last backup time to current time. If you take backups every week, you must keep archived logs for a week. Please make sure your backup is successful before deleting old archived logs. I have seen some one had that two separate jobs one for taking backup and second for deleting archived logs. Backup job failed, but deletion of archived logs succeeded, and this is when Murphy may strike. HTH - Mayen "Janine Sisk" <janine@xxxxxxxxxx<mailto:janine@xxxxxxxxxx>> Sent by: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Apr 20 2010 03:07 PM Please respond to janine@xxxxxxxxxx<mailto:janine@xxxxxxxxxx> To "oracle-l L" <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> cc Subject How long to keep archive logs? Here comes another one of those extremely newbie questions... I have turned on archive logging for the first time, so of course I now have large archive log files piling up. I currently do my backups via the caveman begin/end backup method, because it works very well with Amazon EC2's snapshot feature. I eventually plan to implement RMAN backups as well, but have not done it yet. I have gathered from the reading I have done that archive logs do not need to be kept once a backup has been taken, but I'm not sure if that applies to the type of backups I'm doing or if it is only true if RMAN is involved. It seems logical that I would not need them; if I needed to recover back to before the last snapshot, I would just restore that and be done with it. Can anyone tell me what a reasonable deletion strategy would be for these log files? thanks, janine -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- Howard A. Latham